WARNER TELLS RICHMOND LAW GRADS TO GIVE ADVICE, REASSURANCE AND COMFORT
May 12, 2001
"The most valuable aspect of legal training is, at its heart, providing counsel," venture capitalist and philanthropist Mark R. Warner told some 150 law graduates at their commencement exercises at the University of Richmond today.
"No matter what shape your career takes, you will always be a counselor. People will look to you for advice, for reassurance and for comfort," he said.
A 1980 Harvard Law School graduate who entered business instead of practice, Warner warned the Class of 2001 at the T.C. Williams School of Law that they, too, might find themselves somewhere other than in traditional practice, but that law school has prepared them for success at anything.
"Twenty years from now, your career and your legal work will look nothing like you could imagine this morning," he predicted. "That's the way of life in the age of technology."
Warner advised the graduates to heed four lessons he has learned: take risks, and don't be afraid to fail; learn to adapt to change; take responsibility for your community; and remember that family made possible the achievements of every individual.
The founder of Columbia Capital Corporation related how his "less-than-stellar" performance in law school and summer clerkships led him to start energy and real estate businesses. Both flopped, and at age 26, he found himself "with two business failures and lots of student loans." His third business, wireless communications, exploded.
"My success…depended on my determination to keep trying after I had failed," Warner said.
Also a philanthropist who founded the not-for-profit Virginia Health Care Foundation, TechRiders and Virginia High-Tech Partnership, Warner said he has learned each individual must take responsibility for community advancement, especially those who be leading wage earners.
"A first-year associate at Hunton & Williams or McGuire Woods is instantly in the top tax bracket, and among the best-paid people in America the first day on the job," he said. "With that simple fact comes a huge responsibility" to work for improvement of schools, public health, economic opportunity, and other areas for the benefit of all people.
Warner urged the law graduates to seize the moment to thank their mothers, fathers, grandparents, children and other family members to say "thank you and I love you."
'Most of our six billion neighbors around the world will never even be able to dream of going to college or law school, and you didn't make it here on your own," he said.